What's up with all the sparring?

What's up with all the late season sparring? Perhaps my past use of still cameras just didn't catch it on film, but I've never seen so much late season sparring as I caught on video this year. In addition, I ran video cameras last year and didn't see any late season sparring. This year I'm seeing bucks in bachelor groups post-rut (which is not that abnormal), but I think I caught more sparring matches on video in the last few weeks than I did all pre-rut and rut. A few examples below. In the second video, look in the background behind the 8-pointer at the scrape.

Anybody else seeing this? Is this normal in other areas?

Wonder if seeing that buck working the scrape triggered the other two to get in a shoving match?

Or maybe it's just boys being boys and they all are just rough housing like boys will do? Lol

Cool video...I'd say just normal herd hierarchy dynamics of the third dimension.

Maybe showing dominance over dwindling food supply? I have some sparring pics, but more does fighting.

TnKen said:

I have some sparring pics, but more does fighting.

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The dominance battles I'm seeing between doe groups in the food plots is crazy! They are constantly after each other, ears back, kicking, biting, flailing.

Re establishing pecking order.

I have a bachelor group in a thicket that I have been monitoring via a camera that's hung over a scrape 30 yards from the cover. They are sparring every single morning! Sometimes 3 and 4 bucks head to head at a time. It's light sparring so I figured they were just boys being boys the day after the party but maybe there's more to it.

I'm seeing a lot of hostility with the does in food plots and some late dropping persimmons. Not bucks

Dunno what's up, but the quality of the videos is just astounding. I could watch those forever.

megalomaniac said:

Dunno what's up, but the quality of the videos is just astounding. I could watch those forever.

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To say I'm blown away by the quality of videos from these new trail-cameras would be an understatement! I already have enough cameras to adequately cover my property, but I'll probably get a couple more just because I can't get enough of these videos!

And by the way, the two bucks sparring in the background are just a yearling and a 2 1/2 year-old, but they eventually come up to the scrape. Nothing impressive but still fun to look at. The 2 1/2 is most likely the victim of a damaged pedicle.

Does coming in heat late….
Year before last I saw 7 bucks chasing 1 doe in mid February
All the bucks still had their antlers as well..

Smo said:

All the bucks still had their antlers as well..

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That's a good sign.

Personally, I would get worried if I saw bucks dropping antlers before March.

I agree with the video quality, they are awesome, thanks for sharing.

The fighting at my scrapes is going crazy.11 bucks visitird scrapes today

Still battling

Very, very odd.

I videod bucks fighting and chasing does this morning. 6 bucks chasing and fighting and about 15 does

I watched 4 bucks eating and sparring in a field. They appeared to be a 1/2 rack (probably 8pt), 3yo and 2, 2yo's (6&8pts)along with a small spike. The half rack and one of the 2yo's would spar and spar. I could tell the half rack was getting poked in the eyes and face but, he kept coming back for more. I watched until dark hoping to see his last antler fall off. I'll check back tomorrow evening. It's like he was determined to knock the other antler off.

Hard to have sparring when you haven't seen a 2.5+ yo buck in 8 weeks.

megalomaniac said:

Dunno what's up, but the quality of the videos is just astounding. I could watch those forever.

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Agree!! BSK, I see that it's a Browning camera but which Browning is it? Model?